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What's New in Google Earth?
Each month we highlight the newest additions to Google Earth content. If you haven't been subscribing to Sightseer for long, check the forum for previous editions.
Earth API and Plugin
 On May 28th we released a new way to run a version of Google Earth in your web browser - in a small, easy to install, "plugin". The plugin is a smaller, leaner version of Google Earth designed to run in a browser and provide most of the basic 3D functionality and KML viewing capabilities.
Along with the new plugin, we released a suite of tools allowing developers to control the Google Earth plugin with an application program interface (which we call the Earth API). Because we wanted to introduce the new tools to developers at our Google I/O Developer Conference, we made an early release of the plugin which currently only runs on Windows (with your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser). Expect Mac OS X and Linux versions soon. See the article below on Earth Plugin applications already available.
New 3D Buildings
In early June we made a substantial update to the 3D Buildings layer. Here are some highlights:
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 Disney World in 3D - If you've used Google Earth to explore possible family vacation destinations, then we have a treat for you: Disney has introduced a new layer for Google Earth that allows you to explore the company's popular Orlando, Florida attractions including the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. The new Walt Disney World® layer can be accessed in either the Preview or Gallery->Travel and Tourism layer folders of Google Earth. The layer showcases each park and accommodations, and includes over 5000 buildings and rides, thousands of trees, the monorail, and even picnic tables, benches, signs, and more! The placemarks provide more information, videos, and audio describing the park features. Make sure you turn on the 3D Buildings layer to see the 3D. If you're not sure where it is, just enter "Disney World" in the Fly to search in Google Earth. See a video tour by Frank Taylor who reviewed the Disney collection at Gearthblog.
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 European Championships 2008 - To help football fans celebrate this year's European Championships, we released 3D models of the eight stadiums  used for the games in Google Earth (make sure you have the 3D Buildings layer turned on). We also released a fan map so millions of fans could keep up with the tournament.
- Add Your Cities in 3D - We have expanded our Google Cities in 3D Program, which invites local governments to share their 3D data with the public by adding a model of their city to Google Earth. The program now has localized websites to encourage governments in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands to share their data with us. The Cities in 3D Program provides local governments, community groups, and educational institutions with tools and information for uploading their data to Google Earth. Read more.
- New 3D Cities - As usual, many cities throughout the world have new buildings added through the Google 3D Warehouse. We also added more complete 3D collections of buildings for Dallas, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; and St. Louis, Missouri. Notable updates were made in Sydney, Australia; San Diego, California; Chicago, Illinois; and Christchurch, New Zealand.
Happy Birthday Outreach
We celebrated the first anniversary of the Google Earth Outreach program on June 26. The program began as a 20% project by Googlers Rebecca Moore and Jenifer Austin Foulkes, who shared a vision of using technology like Google Earth to make the world a better place. Over a dozen layers found under the Global Awareness layer folder came from the program, and many tools and tutorials have been released to help people create better content. Outreach layers are available on a variety of topics like endangered species, climate change, disappearing forests, and the crisis in Darfur. Read more.
Happy Birthday Street View
 To celebrate Street View's one year birthday we released 37 new areas of new Street View imagery in the US! Included in the release were 10 new parks and recreational areas. We also expanded coverage in 15 of the previously released areas and improved or updated the imagery quality in many locations. You can view the Street View imagery in Google Earth by turning on the Street View layer. Fly in close to see more icons, and click on a camera icon to fly into a complete panoramic view of each image. Double-click on other camera icons to jump to the each one. You can also view Street View imagery in Google Maps by selecting the Street View button on cities which have the imagery available. Read more.
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Google Earth Plugin Applications
 The new Google Earth plugin is a special version of Google Earth designed to run in your browser with interfaces allowing programmers to write new kinds of 3D Google Earth applications for web pages. As mentioned above, the plugin is initially only available for Windows (and more specifically for IE 6 and 7, Firefox 2 and 3, and Mozilla derivatives). After only one month, there are many applications and sites using the new plugin. The first time you visit a site with the plugin, you'll have to download, install and load it. After that it will quickly pop up on your web page. Most of the same controls for viewing the Earth are still there (depending on the application), and you can normally control your views with the same mouse and keyboard controls as the real Google Earth 4.3.
Here are some examples of Earth plugin applications available so far:
- Monster Milktruck - a fun example game
- Bouncing Earth - control views and animation - via Barnabu)
- Disney World Tour - via GoogleMapsMania
- Mini Flight Sim - also via Barnabu
- EarthSwoop's NFL Football Stadiums - or other EarthSwoop collections
Many of the Google Maps mashups out there can now easily add an Earth button so you can view maps in 3D in the Earth plugin (for example, see Tagzania). Some of the sites let you embed a map into your own web page. One web site, called TakItWithMe , lets you give the link to your Google My Map or a KML file and returns a snippet of code to embed the plugin with the data on your web page.
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Disappearing Forests
 Forests around the world are being cut down at an alarming rate. David Tryse has put together a drammatic 3D visualization demonstrating how quickly the Earth's forests are disappearing. The world has lost close to half of its forests already, and the continued high pace of deforestation contributes greatly to climate change and the loss of biodiversity. When you first load the Disappearing Forests KML , you will see deforestation rate by area. Red indicates a decline in forests, and the scale indicates the number of hectares changed in the last year. Each country has a placemark which provides very interesting details on the state of the forests. You can also choose from a list of other forest maps in the Places pane under the folder called "Country deforestation data". Read more.
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Tour de France 2008
 In honor of the annual Tour de France, we've released Street View imagery for the first time outside of the US. Now, you can follow the famous French race from a 360-degree view. Once you have turned on the Street View layer, zoom in to France and find the camera icons placed along the route. Click on a cameria icon and follow the link to "Jump into Street View" to begin exploring the area. The new imagery is very high quality, enabling you to get a clear since of the entire race route, including hills, turns, and scenic views. Of course, you can also use our special Google Maps layer to view the same French imagery. To find out more, watch our descriptive video.
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Tips & Tricks: Navigating in Street View
With all of the recent Street View imagery launches, we thought it would be helpful to give you a quick tutorial for using Street View in Google Earth. To get started, make sure that Street View is turned on in the layers panel. From there, you should see camera icons lit up around the world in all places that imagery exists. Click a camera icon to preview the area. Then, click "Jump into Street View" and watch as your screen expands to a street level view. From here, you can pan the image up and down with your mouse, click on additional camera icons to move forwards and backwards, or use the small preview window to pan and zoom. Want to go back into Earth mode? Just click "Exit Photo" to be taken back into a 3D experience.
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